Fragments
by Lunais
Summary: Scenes from Heroes.
1. Falling 1x14

**Disclaimer: I do not own Heroes. If I did, would I be writing fanfiction? No. It would all be official and I'd actually make money off of it.  
**

**Author's Notes: This is story was written in a different style than what I normally use. This was an experiment to see if I could write present tense well and if the use of so many run-on sentences would make me cry before I was finished (I didn't). So yeah. I hope the rampant incorrect grammar doesn't kill someone dead.  
**

**Also, I'd just like to say that I tried to make this as exact as possible to that awesome rooftop falling/crash scene in _Distractions_. The only difference is two words of dialogue, and I just added them just to make the story work the way I wanted it to. **

**liana **

* * *

Peter has had enough of Claude's pessimism. The other man has done nothing but trample on his idealism all day and try to convince him that everyone and everything he cares about is just holding him back, that he will explode because he can't let go of them. Peter doesn't even attempt to keep his anger in check as he yells, "I'm tired of you telling me _what_ _I have to do!_ I don't _have_ to do _anything!_"

"Except fly."

And with that nonchalant response and a grin from Claude, Peter is suddenly thrown from the top of the building.

Peter begins to plummet down the long thirty story drop, and he can't focus on anything but the sheer terror of falling. It is nothing like when he jumped off the roof those many weeks ago, there is no Nathan to catch him like he always does, and there are no powers to mimic.

_C'mon, fly!_ he tells himself, trying to take Claude's advice and summon the power that lies within him, but he doesn't know how. His thoughts are a panicked blur of emotion and images of him splattering on the ground below. There's a car down there, too, a yellow taxi cab that he is definitely going to hit, but that information is irrelevant in the face of his certain demise and his mind simply files it away under "Not Important."

Even through the overpowering fear he retains some hope that he is going to make it. Why else would Claude push Peter unless he had faith in him? Try as he might, though, flight still eludes him, and he has no idea exactly how he is supposed to tap into his gift. A panicked thought flashes through his mind.

_Oh God, I am going to die. _

Peter does not take this news calmly. Others might, in the faces of their inevitable deaths, but Peter wants to live. That is why he was with Claude in the first place, so that he could learn how to control his power and not kill everyone he knows and loves.

As he desperately tries to save himself, he suddenly remembers Claire, the cheerleader from Texas he had saved, the one who the whole fate of the world was riding on. He briefly wonders if this is how she felt when she was chased by that killer, this pure, unadulterated feeling of sheer terror. Oddly enough, a flash of protectiveness sparks through him while he falls and cuts through the panic, and as he thinks of her, it almost feels like some sort of… _connection_ has been made and —

_**CRASH.**_

Peter hits the car.

The metal underneath him buckles from the impact and all the windows crack and shatter. Some shards of glass spray out, sending a shower of the sharp, clear fragments away from the taxi. The echo of the collision reverberates briefly through the empty alleyway before it becomes dead silent again.

Peter doesn't notice any of this. Agony blazes through him and temporarily overloads his system. He can't _see_, he can't _hear_, he can't even _smell_, but he can _taste_ the copper tang of blood in his mouth, and there is certainly an overabundance of _feel_ burning its way through him, especially in his upper body. It feels like he's dying, it feels like he's _dead_, but it hurts too much and suddenly realization strikes him.

_I'm alive. _

Sight abruptly returns to him, and what he can see disturbs him. A piece of metal has punched straight through his chest, pinning him to the ruined cab. A very quiet, very sarcastic "_Fantastic_" from Claude floats down from above, and Peter realizes he can hear again. The pain begins to retreat, the fires in his body extinguishing themselves as his shattered bones knit back together and his numerous cuts heal. Only the area where the metal sticks out hurts, but even that is nothing but a smoldering shadow of what it once was. He doesn't know how, he doesn't know why, but he is alive.

Peter is shocked and he has to take a moment to collect himself before attempting to get up. He has to raise himself off the metal in his torso, but the piece in him is cruel and jagged. As he moves up inch by excruciating inch, he feels the sharp edges catch and shred inside him and he screams from the pain, but giving up is not exactly an option right now so he keeps going. After what feels like a lifetime he finally extricates himself from the wreckage. The hole in his chest heals right up, and if it weren't for the tears on his clothes and the blood spattered all over him you would never guess he had just been tossed from the top of a thirty story building.

He slowly crawls off the taxi and staggers unsteadily to his feet, spitting out the blood in his mouth. His dark eyes trail upwards to the spot he had been thrown from. Thirty stories. Peter fell thirty stories and _survived_.

His voice is hoarse and no one is around to hear him, but Peter says it anyway.

"That son of a _bitch_."


	2. Emotion 1x16

**Disclaimer: Same as last time, unfortunately. I still don't own Heroes. -sigh-  
**

**Author's Notes: I'm sorry this one took so long to finish. The last part kept kicking my butt, so that's why it ends the way it does, and angry!Peter's head was unusually difficult to get in to. (Must be all that negative emotion or something.) Of course, that bodes ill for me, because I plan on writing a certain scene from "Parasite" that concerns a certain psychotic serial killer pretty much mindscrewing a certain pretty Indian geneticist next...**

So anyway. Please enjoy. 

**liana**

* * *

"_Why'd you do it, Isaac?" _

Isaac whirls around at the sound of Peter's menace-laced voice, eyes open wide in shock, but he doesn't answer the question. "How'd you get in here?"

Peter ignores the painter's response. "Did they give you _money_? _Drugs_?" His voice takes on a tone of spiteful, amazed curiosity. "What's a Judas _get_ these days?"

"I was trying to stop you," Isaac explains. His voice shakes a little despite his best efforts, the forbidding picture of Peter fresh on his mind. "You're dangerous, you said it yourself. Without them to help, you'll become _that_." He gestures at the painting of the explosion, all bloody crimsons and stark ebonies, a promise of horrific destruction of an unimaginable magnitude.

"I _had_ help. I was learning to control it, but you scared away my only chance of learning how to stop it!" The harsh reminder of Claude's departure sparks memories of remarks made during their final conversation, ones that had never been explained.

"_Well, that's how it works. At least, that's how it did in my day. You drop off the face of the earth for a few days; wake up with a memory hole, a killer headache, and a souvenir."_

"_Did he have a set of these?"_

"_These are for the lucky ones."_

Peter lunges at the artist and throws him facedown on the table, sending paint supplies clattering loudly to the floor. Pinning him down, he roughly yanks down the collar of Isaac's shirt, forcibly exposing the twin black parallel lines on the back of his neck. "What are these marks? _Huh_? _What do they mean_?"

Isaac breaks free of Peter's grip and staggers away. "They're nothing. They mean _nothing," _he insists

"**Don't _lie_ to me**!"

Peter unconsciously reaches for the connection with the murderous telekinetic from that fateful night in Odessa and sends Isaac flying back with a wave of psychic energy. The artist crashes through a few paintings and easels before landing heavily on the floor. There is nothing subtle about the blast, like when he deftly snapped the stick that Claude was smacking him with back on the rooftop. There is no restraint. This was nothing but pure, adulterated force.

_­_--

_Rage._

_It immediately begins to burn through his system, and it amazes him how real and tangible it feels. He had always thought that the fire metaphors associated with this emotion were nothing but clichés, but with this blazing inferno sweeping through his veins, he can understand it perfectly. This is nothing like the petty anger he's felt before; no, this is so much more pure and raw. It is all he can do to not be completely consumed by it, and it threatens to overwhelm his senses, but Peter doesn't mind. He doesn't mind at all; in fact, he embraces it._

--

Over to Peter's right is a painting of Simone and Isaac together on the rooftop, the day's last dying light a somber red behind their dark figures. He stares for a moment, realization sinking in. "This is why you sent them after me? _Jealousy_?" Peter asked incredulously. "To get me out of the way, to have Simone all to yourself."

"_You stole her away from me!"_ Isaac cries, momentarily losing control of his own emotions. Peter can hear the anger and frustration in his voice, as well as a desperate longing for something he's lost. Maybe he would have cared at a different time, but right now it just fuels his own anger. _He_ stole Simone away from Isaac? The other man _never_ _deserved_ her in the first place. Picking himself off the floor, Isaac staggers over to a table, his back to Peter, hands reaching for something Peter can't see.

"But I did it to save New York," the artist continues, his voice much calmer now. "To stop the bomb. I can do it right now." And then he turns, a sleek silver gun in his hands, pointed straight at Peter. "With just one bullet, I can be a hero."

Peter doesn't bother reaching for Claire. It would be so easy for Isaac to put a bullet in his brain at this range and he doesn't quite know if he can regenerate on his own without consciously remembering someone. He was fortunate when Claude threw him off the rooftop, and he doesn't want to push his luck right now. Besides, he can't recall her sweet sadness, not with this smoldering anger pounding in him, and he doesn't think he wants to right now.

So Peter does the next best thing.

He turns invisible.

--

_Contempt._

_Claude's typical state of mind. An intense, almost pathological dislike of all mankind. Peter never really understood, always trying to see more of the good in people than the bad. But now that he's connected to the invisible man through his powers, he can comprehend exactly why, especially with the prime example of humanity's faults standing right in front of him._

--

"You're not a hero, Isaac," Peter tells him, hurling heavy paint cans at him with telekinesis. He watches as the artist attempts to fend off his assault as he moves through the studio. He moves near, whirls away, steps infuriatingly close to Isaac, mocking his inability to catch him. He could reach out and touch him if he so wished, or yank the gun from his hands, but he lets the confrontation continue because he wants, _needs_, the other man to truly understand just how hopeless he is.

"You're a _joke_. You couldn't even save _yourself_." Isaac whirls around, searching for the source of Peter's voice, but he's constantly moving, not letting the painter get a bead on his location.

"_That's_ why she left you, Isaac," Peter explains, his tone scornful as he stalks through the room. Isaac never really understood Simone's reasons for leaving him, had he? How very pitiful that he couldn't even get _that_, but what else could you expect from someone like him? As he continues mock the painter, the contempt and the rage course through him and combine like some sort of dark alchemical reaction, and his voice rises into a crescendo as he shouts, "It had **_nothing_** - **_to do_** - **_with me!_**"

Peter's constant taunting finally causes Isaac to snap. "Show yourself!" he yells. Peter doesn't care, doesn't listen, doesn't bother. He's had enough. He's getting out. And then—

The sound of a door opening.

_What?_

Peter recognizes who it is –_ Simone_ – and a sudden sick flash of fear and comprehension cuts through that dark veil and he realizes what is about to happen and that he is absolutely helpless to stop it just as he sees Isaac turn towards the source of the noise and fire blindly twice.

The gunshots crack through the air louder than any explosion ever could. There is a second of absolute silence and stillness. Simone looks down at the twin crimson stains blossoming on stomach and chest and then back up at Isaac, her eyes reflecting bewilderment and fear. She doesn't say anything, just starts to fall back, shock already beginning to set in. Peter tears across the apartment and reaches her first. He catches her in his arms as she collapses and lowers her down gently. He hears a sudden clatter of metal on concrete and Simone's name being screamed, but none of it registers until Isaac is right beside her. She looks at the both of them, the confusion still evident on her face, and she trembles slightly in Peter's arms before abruptly stopping.

And just like that, Simone Deveaux is dead.

Peter and Isaac stare at each other for a single long moment. All of Peter's thought processes have ceased. There is nothing.

_No._

Almost nothing.

_No._

_It can't be._

_No. _


	3. Toxic 1x18

**Disclaimer:**** I do not own Heroes. Does it look like I own Heroes? No. Stop reminding me.**

**Author's Notes: No, this isn't a songfic to that Britney Spears song. **

**Also? There's a reason why one of the ship names for Sylar/Mohinder is S&M. No, this is not slash. If you see slash, it's because you're looking too goshdarn hard for it. But I'm just saying.  
**

**This is what I affectionately call the "I Give Up Version." I sent this off to a wonderful beta reader (aheartfulofyou, may you forever be blessed in all your endeavors), and the ideas she gave were great, but I ended up angsting and hating what I had written and ignored it for about three weeks before finally implementing some of the stuff she had suggested, and even then I only did a few because I couldn't come up with anything. So I decided to just share what I have and just not care if it's terrible. I also had this done a while ago, it's just that was being hateful and not allowing me to upload my story. Jerks.  
**

* * *

Sylar regains consciousness slowly, groggy and unsure and somewhat confused. Thoughts keep slipping away from him like water streaming through his fingers, and he can't put the shattered fragments of memory together enough to make sense of his current position.

Then he remembers. The list. The tea. The drugs. "Mr. Sylar."

Wait.

_What?_

He's still in Mohinder's apartment. He tries to move, and for one horrifying instant he thinks he's paralyzed, but he soon understands that he's merely strapped down and helpless (but it won't last, he won't let it) in one of the sturdy wooden chairs. As his mind shakes off the last remnants of the dizzying drug-induced fog, he realizes there is a needle stabbed into his arm that is connected to an IV drip.

"I can't feel my fingers," he says, keeping his voice breathless and scared and confused, attempting some sort of damage control even as he wants to scream in rage.

"It's the curare," explains a voice to his left. _Mohinder._ He's adjusting the flow of the drug and making sure the valve is locked into the open position. Satisfied, he leans against the chair in front of Sylar, his pose obviously hostile. "It induces paralysis in the brain, which means you can't control your abilities." And it's true; Sylar reaches for his telekinesis to free himself but finds nothing. It reminds him too much of that room back in the Primatech building in Odessa and he hates it.

Sylar struggles in his chair, not trying to get free, but to test the strength of the restraints holding him down. They hold tight, much to his annoyance, but he's careful to keep his bewildered Zane mask in place. "Whoever you think I am I'm not," he insists, adding a slight tremor to his voice.

"You are the man who murdered my father," Mohinder says, and in that moment Sylar realizes that any subsequent attempts to convince the man in front of him otherwise would result in complete failures. His voice is low, dangerous, barely kept in check. Dark eyes narrow in anger as he asks, "Do you still expect me to believe that you're Zane Taylor?"

He turns the slim laptop on the desk in front of him around, an internet article entitled "Young Musician Found Slain" accompanied by a picture of the corpse displayed onscreen.

"Zane was killed three days ago. The same day I met you." Mohinder leans forward, that pure fury still barely contained. "And you thought you were _so_ clever, giving me his DNA." He reaches into the front chest pocket of his plaid shirt and pulls out a small, two pronged metal object: a tuning fork. Sylar can guess what's coming next. "You're a parasite. You killed my father and fed off his work."

He taps the tuning fork against the table, producing a pure note that hangs in the air, and holds it up right next to Sylar's ear. The noise seems to cut straight through his ears and directly into his head, slicing, slicing.

"Let me hear you say it." Although low, Mohinder's voice amplifies the pain. Sylar had always enjoyed the cries of his victims, the noise, the trauma, but now, _now_, Mohinder's voice, the anger, is just another head-splitting pain to add to the torture.

"Tell me your name!" His demand is louder this time. Sylar tries to hold back his yells because the last thing he needs now is another addition to this raucous cacophony, but he can't help but cry out.

"Say it!" Mohinder is shouting now, and it is nearly unbearable. Sylar can't form any rational, coherent thoughts other than begging to make it stop.

"I want to hear you say it!"

Almost involuntarily he gasps his name, not able to endure the pain any longer. Abruptly satisfied (if that could be possibly be considered the correct term for what the other man is feeling), Mohinder quiets the reverberating metal and stands up to open a drawer on his desk, leaving Sylar gasping and -- dare he admit it? -- whimpering in his chair.

Mohinder pulls out a sleek, silver gun and returns. "There's only one thing to do with a parasite: kill it, before it kills again."

The Zane façade is dropped in a heartbeat. Sylar does not mourn its loss; it was only merely a means to an end. Zane was a weakling, pitiful, pathetic, everything he hates, and he is glad he is finally able to end the charade. "You're just like your father, murderers, the both of you."

"I am a _scientist_."

Sylar laughs mirthlessly, unpleasantly. "You're father said that, but he kept leading me –"

"He had _no_ idea what you were," Mohinder interjects angrily.

Sylar doesn't miss the use of the word "what" instead of "who." He knows what Mohinder is insinuating, and instead of angering him, it amuses him that he was able to get under the other man's skin so very easily. Sylar is an opportunist, a predator; he will wait to strike until the chance to deal the mostdamage presents itself.

"He knew. He might not have admitted it, but after all, we were making so much progress together, why would we stop?" Calculated half truths. Manipulations. The implication that Mohinder's father cared more about proving his theories right than the lives of innocents.

All too easy.

Something deep within Mohinder snaps. "You know _nothing about my father!_" he shouts, pointing the gun directly at Sylar's forehead.

And that brief break in Mohinder's control gives Sylar just the opening he needs.

"I know everything." His voice low, seductive. Painful truth mixed with lies, and it's all Mohinder can do to not be drawn in. Sylar wants to know what effect this will have on him.

"He confided in me."

"He told me things he felt he could never tell you."

"Things about your sister, Shanti." Mohinder's eye twitches at the mention of her name. It looks like he's ready to lose it again, to just kill Sylar and have it be done with.

"He thought you were too – what's the word? – fragile" – Sylar smirks at the way Mohinder's eyes are twitching from barely contained rage – "to know the truth." He leans forward, pressing his forehead against the cool metal of the firearm, taunting, challenging, _daring_ Mohinder to shoot.

But Sylar is the one who is in control here. He may be tied down, drugged, stripped of his powers, and about to have his head splattered around the dimly lit apartment, but the force of his words are binding, hypnotizing, like a snake and its prey.

"That's why he liked me. _You_ were always seeking approval, but _I_ provided stimulation. He gave up on _you_, but he adored _me_, so who's the _real parasite here?"_

For a long moment they stare at each other, their eyes boring into one another, Sylar still pressing his head against the gun and Mohinder not ceding his position.

Then, suddenly, Mohinder lowers the gun.

"You're right," he admits reluctantly, averting his gaze. He regains his composure, or at least tries to. There's not much one can do when nothing's left but tattered remains. "My father did want answers."

He sets the gun down and picks up a green tin box, setting it down on the table next to Sylar, who watches apathetically. Mohinder removes something he can't see from the case. "He called you 'Patient Zero,'" he continues. "You're the template he used to create this formula." Nothing Sylar doesn't already know. He resists the urge to yawn as the Indian moves behind him.

"You're the key to unlocking its secret."

Well, this is news.

"As much as I'd like to, killing you is not going to give me what I need." Sylar can't see what Mohinder's doing, but it sounds almost like he's… uncapped something?

"So what are you going to do?" Sylar asks, genuinely curious.

There's a brief pause. "I'm going to take a sample of your spinal fluid," he replies matter-of-factly.

Oh.

Mohinder leans down close to Sylar's ear, whispering, "_And it's going to hurt_."

He withdraws, and his voice loses any trace of the familiarity it had just moments ago. "You might actually do some good before you die," he growls. Then a hand clamps down on the back of Sylar's head, forcing him down. The large needle—for Sylar has no doubt that is exactly what is in Mohinder's hands—plunges cruelly into his exposed neck, forcing a loud scream from his throat. This hurts so much more than the tuning fork's vibrations; this drags on and on with no end in sight.

His cries are amplified in his own head and he can't hear anything else, but for the tiniest, briefest moment he thinks he can make out the faint ticking sound of a newly repaired watch being restarted.


End file.
